One of the things that suck about living so far away from home is the long journey it takes to get back there. Since moving to the big city this is my first time visiting my home town in almost a year. I have to say on my journey to New York, I spoiled myself by stopping in San Fransisco for a couple of days so this is my first time flying directly from New York to Hawaii or vice versa. I have to say so faaaaaaar.... I'm not exactly enjoying it, but it's not total Hell.
There are the normal airplane irritants. Crying babies, person in the back moving my chair, the fact that I can't sleep for more than an hour. And the cherry on top is, I'm on the aisle so that means that everyone who passes me pretty much brushes my shoulder and/or leg.
It's a ten hour flight. How pleasant can it really get? Being stuck in this seat is like my own personal Hell. If I'm going to stay in one spot all day, like say my bed, or my living room carpet, I want it it be my choice, because to be honest sometimes that is my choice. But I want it to be MY choice. And at least I get room to stretch out and go to the bathroom without having to strategically plan out when I'm going to empty out my bladder. And also I don't have to sit next to a complete stranger who is currently hogging the shared armrest.
So I admit I don't like flying and I don't think any sane person really does. But I do have to say that if I had to fly I would defiantly choose A) a direct flight over one that I would have to transfer planes and B) that has excellent customer amenities.
When I'm traveling I don't want to be stressing over making a transfer to my next plane, making sure there is enough time to walk to the next terminal or if your first flight is delayed even in the slight it can totally screw up your transfer plans. Also I am forever worried that the plane crew will somehow lose my bag in a transfer. I mean it's not that difficult to misplace a bag out of the thousands of bags one deals with. So I can only imagine how awful it would be to have a misplaced bag. On a direct flight there isn't any stress about these things. No transfers mean all I have to stress about is getting on that one flight on time. And, I mean how incompetent does the crew have to be to lose a bag that only have one destination.
Also the customer amenities I realize are what really makes a flight bearable. I remember when I would fly when they have the big over head screens that would show movies I would really be pissed when I didn't have good viewing access to the screen. Also I'm kind of short and the airplane seat are kind of tall. Not only that but when I actually do get to fall asleep on the plane I would be pissed if I feel asleep before the movie. And of course since I normally can't stay asleep for more than an hour on the plane I always wake up in the middle of the movie wondering what the hell is going on. So little things like this can really make or break a flight for me.
Thankfully Hawaiian airlines have these personal screen things that if I shell out $6.99 then I have access to a bunch of TV shows, some old movies and some games. I wish that these have more episodes of each TV series, but I guess having a wide variety is the pay off. Fortunately there are a bunch of shows that I actually love. I'm currently watching an episode of "Bones" with a serious gross out factor of ten cats in heat. So props to Hawaiian for actually having decent shows even though they only have random episodes of all of the shows.
These video screens also feed into one of my all time favorite hobbies, judging strangers. I can just look in front of me diagonally and I can see what all the people in front of me are watching. I'm so nosy I watched this guy watch two really awful action movies... that he paid $7.99 per movie. So that means he shelled out over $14 for, in my opinion, totally caca. And then there's this awesome dude sitting right behind action movie dude, and he is watching episodes of "Arrested Development" and "Bob's Burgers". However he is laughing out loud at all of the funnies so Imma just say that he's comfortable with who he is? Also there's this old man sitting across of the aisle for me and he is having some serious difficulty getting his screen to function. If I wasn't a decent human being I would watch this man as if he were my own personal TV sitcom. Old people working with technology, another one of my favorite watching sports.
Another decent thing about Hawaiian is that they give out complimentary meals. I'm the type of person who loves me some free stuffs. I mean especially if it's a whole meal. Also what person is not going to accept a free meal. I mean yes,I'ms airline food and it is obviously not going to be even a three star meal, but mama is gonna get hungry on a ten hour flight. And the mushroom broccoli pasta they served as the first meal was actually pretty decent after I added some salt and pepper.
Even the paid food service seems to be so good here that everyone is getting up (much to my dismay) and has been buying food from the stewards for like the past hour. Unfortunatly that means more people walking back and forth, touching my shoulder with their butts, kid's feet and what nots. Also it means I smell airplane wine, which I had a really bad experience with on my flight to San Fransico. But I suppose this just means happy flyers, which equal a happier flight for everyone.
Overall my current experience is not overly exciting, nor is it as awful as it could potentially be on another airlines. So I rate this flight 6.5 planes.... Out of 10 planes (planes are pretty much equivalent to stars, I'm just trying to be cute here...). Of course, once I'm off this stupid plane all the awful things will be forgoten because getting to go home after almost a year over shadows even the worst experiences on a plane.
